


The Stranger in the Bed

by Karis_Artemisia_Judith



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Awkward Sexual Situations, F/M, Post-Canon, Postpartum Depression, Sex Repulsion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 13:37:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14717091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karis_Artemisia_Judith/pseuds/Karis_Artemisia_Judith
Summary: After the birth of their daughter, Anna has become like a stranger to Kristoff, and he doesn't know how to reach her.





	1. 1st Interlude

Soft, yielding heat—enthusiastic hands pulling him closer—a laughing whisper in his ear that merged into other sounds of pleasure, warm breath sighing against his neck, and he was so close to feeling complete, so close—

“Anna—”

Kristoff woke in a snarl of blankets, mind foggy and body aching, and reached out for his wife. A distant cry made his hand stop short. Anna lay with her back to him, the quilt pulled up to the high neck of her nightgown. Her shoulders were stiff, and he knew she was awake, but she didn’t stir. There was no real need, after all. There were innumerable nursemaids to see to the baby. He pulled his hand back silently and scrubbed the heel of it over his face.

There was the grit of sleep in the corners of his eyes, sandy roughness along his jaw, but it was his stomach that felt as though it was full of stone, full of a cold, dull ache. And then there was another part of him that ached, but it was a persistent throbbing that refused to forget the heat of his vivid dreams. He sighed harshly and flung the covers back.

 On the mountain he would have plunged into an icy stream, would have felt every nerve ending on his body snap to attention in one moment, only to be numbed in the next, and any lingering amorous heat drowned out.  In the castle he had to wait for two servants to fill the tub, giving him plenty of time to wonder what had gone wrong.

Kristoff stared down at his hands, the fingers curling and uncurling, grasping at the cold, empty air. He tried to sift through his memories, to pin down a single moment when his wife had first flinched away from his touch.  A month ago he had woken up with his arm curled around his wife, his palm cupping the taut swell of her nightdress. Her voice, like a bright stream of birdsong, chattering excitedly as her fingers stroked over his.  Their bodies had been nestled together like two pieces carved by an expert joiner, fitting flush and seamless without any need for nails.

Now they were like wood that had warped, twisting and splintering. Anna was like a silent shadow of the woman that he remembered. But he didn’t know why. Their daughter had been born, the world had been unbearably golden, he thought, for a week, two weeks, and then he had realized that his wife was slipping away, her smile fading like the light of a candle that guttered into darkness. It was as though a stranger shared his bed.

The tub was full at last, and the servants gone. Kristoff stripped off his sleeping clothes and sank into the lukewarm water. The delay and his dark thoughts hadn’t done much to distract his body. That damned dream had been too real—he could still taste her on his lips, and  _gods_  he missed her, he missed her touch—his hand went to himself, anxious to relieve the aching tension.

At least there was something to be done about this kind of dream, a way to banish the ghosts that haunted him every morning and find some relief. There was no way to free himself of his other dreams. Often they were nightmares about the frozen fjord, of finding Anna only to have her turn away and vanish into the storm, leaving him behind. And those weren’t even the worst dreams. The worst were the dreams  of simple things, of walking hand in hand with Anna along the docks, or sitting with her in a meadow on the mountain, of Anna reaching out for him, leaning into his touch, resting her head on his shoulder. He would wake up smiling, hearing her laughter, only to lose her all over again when he opened his eyes.  If he just knew what was wrong, if he could just get her back—gods, if he could just hold her in his arms for a moment, feel her skin on his—if only the bed didn’t feel so wide and cold—

Kristoff stroked harder, wishing that his body and mind would work together. His cock demanded release, but his thoughts were a dark tangle that kept distracting him from the task.

“ _Anna—_ ”

“I’m right here.”

Water splashed out of the tub as he jumped, starting as violently as if he’d been jabbed with a needle. He swore as he twisted around, his hands going down to hide the livid erection that stood up out of the now much shallower water.

Anna was standing in the doorway, still in her pale nightdress although her hair was brushed and smooth around her shoulders. She bit her lip. “I heard—I heard you.”

“I’m sorry.” His neck burned with humiliation and he looked away from her, his shoulders rounding with shame as he tried to scrunch deeper into the tub, to fold his body in on itself like an envelope, as if this moment could be sealed away. But even now his cock bobbed, stiff and unyielding. Kristoff cursed under his breath. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for you to—be bothered. I just—I woke up with—it—”

His babbling cut off when Anna’s hand touched his shoulder. She knelt in the puddle of water beside the tub, gown darkening around her knees as it was soaked. Her lip was still caught between her teeth, and her fingers pressed him back against the sloping edge of the tub, cautiously urging him to uncurl.

“Anna?”

She didn’t meet his eyes, her glance flicking across his body, up to his lips, then away, like the elusive flutter of blue summer butterflies. But her palm slipped down a little, resting on his chest. “I could help,” she said.

“What?”

“I could help.” Her hand slipped a little lower, and his breath caught sharply. The movement made her startle back, her fingers curling around the rim of the tub. “I should help,” she whispered.

The words cut through his persistent arousal as nothing else had. “No,” he said, his voice gruff. “You don’t have to.” He gripped the edge of the tub himself, muscles tensing to pull himself up, when another whisper arrested him.

“Please.”

Kristoff fell back into the water, his body relaxing on its own, the heat that had ebbed rushing back at the sound of that single word. Anna leaned in over him, rising up on her knees, and he could see the way her wet nightgown clung to her plump thighs, to the curves of her backside. His throat was too dry to protest as she gripped him, her fingers cool and a little clumsy at first, stroking hesitantly. She grew more confident after a moment, her hand tightening and tugging gently. It felt so good, so good to have her close to him, to have her touch—he reached out without thinking to touch her in return, but Anna jerked away, slipping on the wet tiles and nearly falling backward. Her breathing was sharp and hard, her head shaking back and forth.

“I’m sorry.” He clenched his fists to keep from scrambling out of the tub, to stop himself from taking hold of to lift her up, the way he had unthinkingly done so many times. “I’m sorry, I thought—are you okay?”

Anna nodded slowly, pushing herself back up onto her knees. “I’m fine. I just—I don’t want…I can touch you, but, I don't—please don’t touch me.”

“You don’t have to do this,” he said. “Just—I can take care of it, Anna, it’s fine.”

She shook her head again, meeting his eyes at last. “I want to take care of you. Just—”

“Okay. I promise, I’ll try.”

Kristoff leaned back in the tub again, his arms stretched along the rim so that he could grip the edge, keeping his hands where Anna could see them. She scooted closer, reached over him, and after a moment her head came to rest against his shoulder. As she found her rhythm again, he turned his head so that his nose brushed against her soft hair, breathing in the scent of her. This much contact seemed to be okay. He closed his eyes, his body tightening quickly now. Anna’s breath was warm against his neck, each exhalation whispering over his clavicle, and there was warmth in his stomach at last, something coiling, something unclenching. The breaking point came suddenly, making his body shudder, and he cried out into Anna’s hair, hoarse and triumphant.

Afterward he slumped, his head falling back. Anna cupped up palmfuls of water, gently washing away the splashes of release from his stomach as he remembered how to breathe.

“Anna,” he whispered. She touched his shoulder lightly, but then she was standing up and turning away from him. He watched her disappear into her dressing room. The soaked nightdress clung to her thighs, turned almost sheer and heavy with water. Fat drops across the floor made a trail like breadcrumbs. After a moment Kristoff scrambled out of the tub, drying and dressing himself hastily before following the rapidly vanishing path.

“Anna—” He checked himself, averting his eyes from the half-open door.

“You can come in.” Anna was already dressed in skirt and blouse. She fiddled with the bodice in her hands, clasping and unclasping the hooks.

“Could we talk? About..that?”

“What is there to talk about?”

“I—Anna—” He scrubbed his hand through his hair to stop himself from reaching out. “I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do. If you did that just now because you thought—I don’t know, if you felt like you had to do it, you don’t. Not ever.”

“I know,” she said. “I know, and that’s why I wanted—I—” Her arms wrapped around herself, crumpling the bodice she held, and her teeth dug into her lip. “I know that you’ve been wanting…and you’ve been patient, and I just—” He opened his mouth but she lifted a hand. “I love you.” She finally looked up into his face, her blue eyes dark with tears. “I still love you. I wanted to do something to show you, and…it’s not  _you_ , Kristoff, I’m the one that’s all wrong.”

“What?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know how to explain it, I just—my body doesn’t even feel like  _mine_ , and the thought of that, even with you, I can't—” Her shoulders scrunched up. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she whispered. “I remember being different, I remember wanting you so much, and being excited to have a baby, and now it all feels so far away. It’s like everything is on the other side of a door, and I don’t know how to open it, but—”

“Anna—”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I do love you. I do.”

“Anna.” Kristoff reached out, slowly, and took the wrinkled bodice from her. “Here.” He held it so that Anna could put it on, then with careful precision he began to fasten the hooks. “I love you,” he said quietly. “With all my heart. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do to prove anything to me.”

“I know. I wanted to, though. I don’t mind touching you, it’s just  _being_  touched. And it helped, didn’t it? It was good?”

He finished the row of hooks and paused, looking down at her. “Yeah. It was.”

“I could help you again, sometimes.”

“If you want to. Only if you want to, Anna.”

She nodded. Then she stepped back from him, twisting her hair up into a tight coil. “I need to go.”

“Anna—” She stopped in the doorway, but didn’t look back at him. “What I miss most is you talking to me. I wish you would tell me what’s wrong. Did I do something? Did I hurt you?”

She shook her head.

“Then what?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered, and then she was gone.


	2. 2nd Interlude

The breakfast parlor was empty when Kristoff finally went slowly down the stairs. He filled a plate at the sideboard and then sat, staring into nothing as the eggs and sausages went cold in front of him.

“A kreuzer for your thoughts?”

A petite woman, plump and dark, dropped into the chair across from him and began lavishly buttering her toast.

“Are troubles that cheap in Austria?” Kristoff stabbed his fork blindly at his plate.

“Trouble is cheap everywhere. You don’t have to pretend to eat those, cold eggs are disgusting. Here.” Margot pushed her plate of warm toast toward him. He took a piece, eating without tasting, while she poured out fresh hot coffee. Kristoff sipped his, but Margot was still spooning sugar into hers as she spoke.

“I saw Anna in the hall earlier,” she said, her accent giving her consonants an unfamiliar rhythm. “She said that her day was tied up with meetings, but that you were free this afternoon. We need to make progress on your portrait before winter comes and steals all of the daylight.”

“Don’t you need both of us to be there?”

“Oh no, I have the rough outline, I can work on your faces separately.”

Kristoff nodded. That was why Margot had come to Arendelle, after all—Anna had seen one of her portraits, months ago, and written to invite her. Margot had arrived before the baby she was commissioned to paint. She had ended up spending most of her time with the queen, quickly forming an intimate friendship, and Kristoff had no doubt that when Margot had passed Anna in the hallway so early it was because she was discreetly slipping back to her own room.

A brisk step announced the queen herself, and Kristoff straightened his back as Elsa strode in, her arm crooked around a stack of papers.

“Good morning!” Margot said brightly. “Coffee?”

“Please.” Elsa smiled, her hand lingering as she took the cup from Margot’s fingers, the two women sharing a private look. It made Kristoff’s chest clench—he didn’t begrudge his sister-in-law her happiness, he was glad for her, but in the same moment seeing it front of him was like the rasp of roughspun wool across sunburned skin.

His thoughts went back to the scene in his own room that morning—Anna flinching away from his touch, her eyes never meeting his, her body arched away from him. Anna’s hand curling around him, her breath against his neck, her damp nightdress clinging to the curves of her thighs, her bottom. Anna, who had been sunshine, had been a bubbling fountain of words, silent and dim, like a snuffed candle. Kristoff drained his coffee cup, letting it scorch his tongue and fill his mouth with bitterness.

Elsa jumped a little at the click of his cup on its saucer, and blushed. “Oh, good morning, Kristoff. Have you seen Anna?”

“She came down early,” he said, keeping his face and voice neutral.

“Oh, good. She must have already gone to meet the ambassadors. I’ll send someone to take this report to her, she’ll need it when they stop hobnobbing and settle down to negotiate.” Elsa paused in the door, absentmindedly cradling her documents. “How is Anna?” she asked.

“Fine,” he said. “She’s fine.”

“Good, good. The midwife said she shouldn’t overtax herself, but as long as she’s fine…” The queen went out, already absorbed in her responsibilities for the day.

Margot was sitting with her chin on her hand, watching Kristoff. “You never did tell me your troubles,” she said.

“You never gave me a kreuzer.” Kristoff swallowed another cup of coffee, the dregs scratching at his throat.

“I’m sure it’s difficult, adjusting now that the little princess is here—”

“Yes.” He stood. “Thank you for the toast. I’ll come to your studio in a few hours, after I finish some chores.”

#

Kristoff cleaned out the stables. He groomed Sven, with the reindeer twisting his neck to stare at him with liquid eyes, but without offering any comments. He polished his sled, meticulously applying oil and wax, making miniscule adjustments and repairs. It was while he was polishing the running board for the second time that he heard Anna’s voice, bright and cheerful.

She was in the courtyard, exchanging farewells with the visiting ambassadors as they climbed into their coach. Kristoff knew better, but couldn’t stop himself from leaning against the stable door, watching her. The smile sat on Anna’s face like a mask. It was like watching a stranger pretend to be his wife, and it wrung his heart, but he couldn’t stop looking, searching for some trace of her real smile.

As the carriage rolled away she caught sight of him. The happy expression slipped away like meltwater—then she smiled at him, a weak flicker of a smile, before she turned away.

Instead of bathing, this time he plunged into the fjord and let the icy water cleanse him. He held his breath until his lungs burned. Anna’s voice echoed in his mind.

_I don’t know what’s wrong with me._

_I remember being different._

_I still love you._

He surfaced, gasping, and climbed up the cold, sharp-edged rocks.

#

“Do not scowl,” Margot scolded from behind her easel. “You will make the wrong sort of shadows on your face.”

A sunny room in one of the castle towers had been given over to Margot as a studio, and large windows let light flood over the settee where Kristoff sat. When she had first arranged the pose for her portrait, the Austrian artist had made careful chalk marks so that her subjects would always be in the same place, arms and legs correctly disposed. Kristoff’s arm was stretched along the back of the couch, around the empty space where Anna belonged, and it felt like a wound.

“Sorry.” Kristoff tried to smile, and Margot pulled a face.

“That is worse, stop that. Just relax your face.” Her brush made soft whispering sounds as it moved across the canvas, colors mingling in a conversation of light and shadow. “You did not want to tell me your troubles, this morning.”

Kristoff opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“Do not make a face like a fish either,” she said. “And don’t tell me you have no troubles. I’m an artist, I look at faces all the time. You are troubled, and Anna is troubled, and you are both trying very hard to pretend otherwise. And I am spending my days looking at your faces, and you are not getting better.”

“It's…it’s private.” Kristoff shrugged uncomfortably.

Margot raised an eyebrow at him. “And I am very, very discreet, as you know. You can tell me, and the walls, and the little grey mouse that I am not supposed to be feeding, who lives behind a corner of the mantle. None of us will tell.”

“I—” Kristoff scrubbed a hand across his face.

“Shall I tell you about my sister?” Margot asked. She daubed at her canvas without looking at him. “My sister wanted a child so badly, and at last she had her first baby. But then she was sad—it was heartbreaking, so see how sad she was. Brigetta thought she was possessed by an evil spirit, because she couldn’t bear to leave her bed, and she wept every time she tried to hold her baby.”

“I—” He didn’t know how to respond. The room dimmed, and Margot clucked in annoyance, swearing in her own language.

“Those wretched clouds are blocking my sunlight. Well, you can get up, but wait and see if they will move.”

Kristoff stood, and went around the easel to look at Margot’s work. An old changing screen stood beside her chair, and dozens of sketches were pinned to it. Most of them had been done in the weeks before Anna gave birth. He stared hungrily at the way Margot had captured Anna’s smile, the way she laughed, the contented way she had settled into her favorite chair and folded her arms lovingly around her belly.

“Tell me about Anna,” Margot said.

He glanced up. The canvas in on the easel was half-worked—Kristoff himself was clearly unfinished, but was starting to take shape. Beside him, however, Anna was just a vague outline, the color of her dress blocked in, but her face just a light sketch, ghostly and vague. In the drawing the suggestion of hands cradled empty space instead of a baby.

“Anna is…she’s like this.” Kristoff gestured at the picture. “It’s as if she’s not really there. She’s like…like a stranger. She smiles and chatters with people like everything is normal, but it’s just a mask, and—she doesn’t want to be touched. At least she doesn’t want me to touch her. And she doesn’t go to the baby—she barely talks about her. Our daughter doesn’t have a name yet. I almost feel like…like Anna doesn’t want her after all, even though having a child was all the could talk about, almost as soon as we got married, and now everything has gone wrong, and she won’t  _talk_  to me, and I don’t know how to talk to her and…” He rubbed his hands over his face. “I just want my wife back.”

Margot wacked him with the brush she’d just cleaned. He stared at her.

“You are an idiot,” she said crisply. “Talking about your wife like she’s not really your wife. It’s like you think your first wife died and you’ve been given a…I don’t know the word. Wechselbalg? A replacement, when a baby is switched with a goblin child?”

“Changeling,” Kristoff said.

“Ah, changeling. I know what it is like to feel like someone you love is suddenly a stranger, but, mein Gott, you haven’t  _lost_  your wife, like she’s a pocket watch fallen out of your pocket. She’s here. Well, not here, but somewhere in this drafty maze. You need to love your wife.”

“I do love her!” he snapped. His fists clenched angrily.

Margot raised her eyebrows, not at all intimidated. “Do you? Or do you love a memory?”

“I—” Kristoff took a measured breath, and she nodded.

“You do, I know, and it’s not easy. Don’t keep pining away, waiting for the person she was to come back.”

“But—” He looked down, curling and uncurling his fingers. “I miss her.”

“Ah.” Margot laid her hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. But Kristoff, she will never come back. This woman?” She tapped a sketch of Anna laughing, the quick pen strokes almost capturing the sound. “This woman is gone. The portrait I paint of you today, you will never be this same man again. Tomorrow, in a year, in ten years, you will be different too. No person stays the same. We all change. You must love the wife in front of you. She is in a difficult place right now, but she is your wife, so be there with her.”

“I’m trying,” he said, shaking his head. “But she won’t talk to me, I don't—”

“Are you listening?” Margot asked. “People talk with more than words, you know.”

#

Their room was empty. Across the hall, the door of the nursery was open, and Kristoff stopped short.

Anna stood by the crib. Silent tears rolled down her cheeks as she watched the baby sleep. Kristoff must have made a sound, because she glanced up at him, her eyes like dark blue wells of pain. He took a step forward, reaching out before he caught himself.

“Anna?”

“I tried again, this afternoon,” she said. “I wanted to feed her myself, but—the nurse kept trying to tell me what to do, how to hold her and how to sit and I tried, but I couldn't—and she started to cry, and wouldn't…” Anna’s voice broke off and she gripped the crib’s ornate carved rail. “I gave her back to her nurse and she calmed right away, and I just ran out and left her. I left her.”

He ached to hold her, he wanted to wrap her in his arms and kiss her tears away and tell her that everything would be all right, but— _listen_ , Margot had said. He stood next to Anna, laying his hand next to hers on the crib, not touching, but nearly, and waited.

“I wanted to be a good mother,” Anna whispered. “How can I be a good mother when I can’t take care of her? I can’t even hold her—I want to, Kristoff, I do, but every time I pick her up my heart races, and I start trembling, because I’m so afraid, of—of dropping her, or doing something wrong. And when she cries I freeze up, I don’t know what to do, and I can’t stand it. That’s not…it’s not how a mother is supposed to feel. How is she going to know that I love her, if I can’t even hold her?”

“She’ll know,” he said. “This is just the first month—you’ll have the rest of your life to show her that you love her, Anna.”

She nodded, but the tears kept leaving dark marks, like smudges of ash, on the bodice of her dress.

#

He was groggy when he woke in the morning, rolling over out of a deep, enveloping dream. Kristoff was still vague with sleep when he felt a light touch on his chest. He blinked the cobwebs away. The sunlight was the grey of early dawn, and the morning bustle of the castle hadn’t started yet.

Anna was sitting beside him, her legs tucked behind her. There was a question in her eyes, but he didn’t understand it until her fingers brushed down his chest, across his belly, and—he drew in a sharp breath as he realized that part of him was more awake than his sluggish brain.

“Would you like me too…” Anna’s fingertip traced the outline on his straining sleep pants. “To help?”

“Anna—I—” He hesitated. “Could you—”

She bit her lip. “What?”

“Could you kiss me? Just kiss,” he said quickly. “And let me take care of—” he gestured down. Anna froze, her hands pulling away, and sat back. “Here,” he said, and reached up with his left arm to grip the headboard. “I’ll leave my other hand there, and—”

“Okay,” she said, and nodded.

Her mouth was hesitant and light against his, but it still made his heart skip a beat. Anna hovered over him, supported on her hands as she kissed him. Slowly the kiss deepened, but he fought his urge to press up against her, letting her keep control. His hand fumbled with the ties at his waist, and he stroked languidly, keeping pace with her. Anna sighed against his lips and he couldn’t hold back a groan.

Sooner than he expected he was gasping into her mouth, breaking the kiss involuntarily as his head arched back—but Anna pressed small kisses to the corners of his mouth, his neck, as the release washed through him.

Kristoff blinked dazedly at the canopy as Anna slipped off the bed. She brought him a damp cloth from the washbasin, and then crawled back into the other side of the bed. He cleaned himself off and then rolled onto his side to look at her.

“Thank you,” he said.

Anna shrugged, smiling faintly and tucking her hands under her chin.

“I love you,” he blurted. “I mean—not because of—” he gestured awkwardly. “I realized that I didn’t say it, yesterday. But I love you, and I will always. I may not understand what is happening between us right now, but—I still love you.”

Anna didn’t answer. But her hand slid across the cool sheets between them, and when he curled his fingers around hers, she didn’t pull away.


End file.
